Climate Change 'war effort'

When reading about climate change I've seen some articles compare the level of economic restructuring needed to address climate change to rearmament and the war effort during ww2.

Is this a good comparison to make? It has led me to question how did capitalism function during the war as it must have differed from todays globalised, financialised, free market, interdependent and international trade type capitalism.

Its also led me to ask if its theoretically possible for states to regard climate change as an existential threat and nationalise their economies so that they can eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy.

I guess I am basically asking if its possible for capitalism to restructure itself to adapt to climate change. It obviously isn't an anarchist solution, and we would still have capitalisms rampant resource extraction linked to growth to address, but if it created an economy based on renewable energy and reduced the impact of climate change it would surely be worth suporting right?

You're asking two questions it seems. Can capitalism adapt to climate change and can capitalism solve the climate crisis. The answer to the former is: yes, it already is. I don't know the answer to the second question. I'm extremely skeptical that an economic system that relies on endless resource extraction, limitless expansion and 'eating its own tail' so to speak is capable of scaling back.

You're asking two questions it seems. Can capitalism adapt to climate change and can capitalism solve the climate crisis. The answer to the former is: yes, it already is. I don't know the answer to the second question. I'm extremely skeptical that an economic system that relies on endless resource extraction, limitless expansion and 'eating its own tail' so to speak is capable of scaling back.

I am asking if its possible for states to force their economies to unhitch from carbon through massive subsidies for renewables, green infrastructure development and probably banning fossil fuel industries.

I am doubtful about it as well, but I hope that it is possible, plus I keep seeing things online making statements like 'Scotland will be carbon neutral by 2040' or Denmark powering itself with renewable energy for a month or so. It seems a lot of scientists and policy people think its possible for countries to go carbon neutral, zero waste and 100% renewable.

Often 2 examples are given to say that despite the massive effort this would involve, similar restructurings have happened before like the war effort and the abolition of slavery.

I wouldn't like to say that it isn't possible for states to go carbon neutral, zero waste and 100% renewable energy, because that it isn't possible would be the same position capitalists would take arguing that it would be economic suicide.

Saying things are impossible kind of denies politics, because anything is possible really if there is enough people demanding change.

Capitalism is flexible. It mutates like a virus. Perhaps it can survive the impact of climate change even though it is a system predicated on market expansion and accumulation and cost-cutting. I can't imagine the form it will re-shape into. Maybe some nations will try to pull out all the stops but will they economically succeed if competing countries do not.

Costa Rica is getting accolades but its benefiting from operating in a niche corner of the economy like some co-ops can.

I am definitely not saying that we have to overturn capitalism completely before we can get serious about climate stabilization...the struggle for an egalitarian climate stabilization project — a Green New Deal — will serve, in my view, as one of the principal areas of struggle in advancing a democratic socialist alternative to capitalism..

"This resolution outlines a plan to launch a WWII scale transformation of our economy, including a just transition for workers and frontline communities, and moving to 100 percent clean and renewable energy by 2030,"

Man, some of the responses in this thread make me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone... I don't know if people on here just aren't familiar with the science or what, but there has never been a time in history when it has been clearer that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of taking any substantive steps to mitigate the environmental crises it creates....

Doesn't matter, let's just all start cheerleading for the new "green" capitalism to come. It will surely be worth supporting, right?

How about instead of just mocking, you actually make some contribution to the discussion or don't bother, because you know I am not stupid. I've studied environmental sciences, I am familiar with the science on climate change and with arguments that capitalism can not solve the environmental crisis as being dependant on growth it is systemically unsustainable, which is a view I actually agree with.

I was merely questioning if this view is entirely correct and if it is actually possible for capitalism to change itself especially when at some point it inevitably must do so in the face of environmental catastrophes. I was also asking if the examples which some environmentalists give (the abolishing of slavery and the war effort) do show that capitalism is able to mobilise to respond to a crisis or readjust the way its economy functions.

Also, I did not mean to suggest that we start supporting "green capitalism". I was only asking if it is worth campaigning for capitalism to go green and switch to renewable energy, much like it’s worth campaigning for capitalism to be gender equal. This isn't an argument for capitalism or for a green washed capitalism, but for reform brought about by massive social movements. Yes I think this would be worth supporting when we seem to be stuck with capitalism for the foreseeable future and when if capitalism does nothing then the alternative is catastrophe.

To deal with climate change will require a far greater level of planning than we've seen in any capitalist state, and this planning, unlike that in the US during WII or the USSR will have to centralize on an international scale.

To deal with climate change will require a far greater level of planning than we've seen in any capitalist state, and this planning, unlike that in the US during WII or the USSR will have to centralize on an international scale.

I guess this is very unlikely in the current political climate with Trump in the Whitehouse, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Brexit.

Its still something we should pressurize governments to pursue though. Even if one country manages to go renewable it would be an example to others of what is possible.

How about instead of just mocking, you actually make some contribution to the discussion or don't bother

How about no. Some ideas don't deserve anything but mockery, and dignifying them with a serious response would already mean ceding ground.

Scallywag wrote:

I was merely questioning if this view is entirely correct and if it is actually possible for capitalism to change itself especially when at some point it inevitably must do so in the face of environmental catastrophes.

No, it does not "inevitably" have to do so. It can go on with business as usual and drive the human species to extinction (common ruin of the contending classes), or it can be overthrown by the working class and replaced with a classless society that makes rational use of natural resources to satisfy human needs.

Scallywag wrote:

Its still something we should pressurize governments to pursue though.

Maybe the first step would be to get the right government, so that it's, you know, more amenable to being pressurized. Go, Corbyn, go!

How about instead of just mocking, you actually make some contribution to the discussion or don't bother

How about no. Some ideas don't deserve anything but mockery, and dignifying them with a serious response would already mean ceding ground.

Scallywag wrote:

I was merely questioning if this view is entirely correct and if it is actually possible for capitalism to change itself especially when at some point it inevitably must do so in the face of environmental catastrophes.

No, it does not "inevitably" have to do so. It can go on with business as usual and drive the human species to extinction (common ruin of the contending classes), or it can be overthrown by the working class and replaced with a classless society that makes rational use of natural resources to satisfy human needs.

Scallywag wrote:

Its still something we should pressurize governments to pursue though.

Maybe the first step would be to get the right government, so that it's, you know, more amenable to being pressurized. Go, Corbyn, go!

Even if one country manages to go renewable it would be an example to others of what is possible.

And now it's "green capitalism in one country". Leading by example. Holy shit.

Wow, I asked if it was worth voting labour (about 2 years ago!) and I did not suggest that we should.

Maybe you should stop accusing me of thinking this and that and actually ask first, and whilst your at it stop making shit up like I support Corbyn. Also it doesn't make you smart to dissect a persons post line by line, maybe you should try reading a persons entire post first, not put words in their mouth and respond to the entire context of what the person is saying.

You've still added nothing to this thread and your obviously not a serious poster by responding like you have.

How about no. Some ideas don't deserve anything but mockery, and dignifying them with a serious response would already mean ceding ground.

Fine mock ideas as much as you like, but it was pretty clear you were mocking me for even bringing up the idea of capitalism going green.

AnythingForProximity wrote:

No, it does not "inevitably" have to do so. It can go on with business as usual and drive the human species to extinction (common ruin of the contending classes), or it can be overthrown by the working class and replaced with a classless society that makes rational use of natural resources to satisfy human needs.

This is exactly what I said. Capitalism will inevitably come up against climate change and the ecological crisis and then it inevitably MUST change or morph into something else otherwise it will lead to catastrophe for all. I never said that it inevitably WILL change, but it will need to or cease existing. Yes the working class could rise up and replace capitalism with a rational system, but that seems just as unlikely any time soon as capitalism changing itself.

AnythingForProximity wrote:

And now it's "green capitalism in one country". Leading by example. Holy shit.

And what's to say that a country couldn't turn to zero waste and 100% renewable energy and why would pressurizing governments to do so be wrong? I'd say given what's at stake with climate change we should do all that we can which can include direct action, but also getting governments to take serious meaningful action on climate change. We don't have a lot of time.

I don't know what your problem with me is anyway, maybe you thought I was advocating green capitalism instead of just questioning whether its possible, maybe you just decided you didn't like me, or maybe your internet ego got pissed since I called you out for being a dick.

Fine mock ideas as much as you like, but it was pretty clear you were mocking me for even bringing up the idea of capitalism going green.

I was mocking the sheer naïvety of a reformist coming to a libertarian communist forum with a hypothetical reform and expecting everyone to agree that it would "surely be worth supporting".

Scallywag wrote:

This is exactly what I said. Capitalism will inevitably come up against climate change and the ecological crisis and then it inevitably MUST change or morph into something else otherwise it will lead to catastrophe for all.

No, capitalism being overthrown by world revolution is not exactly the same as capitalism "chang[ing] or morph[ing] into something else"; the proletariat destroying the entire mode of production based on value by abolishing itself as a class is not exactly the same thing as a WWII-style "economic restructuring". Those two scenarios don't even exist on the same continuum; rather, they are exact opposites, since they express the interests of two irreconcilably antagonistic classes.

I can see why a social democratic reformist posting on an anarchist forum would pretend otherwise, though.

Scallywag wrote:

Yes the working class could rise up and replace capitalism with a rational system, but that seems just as unlikely any time soon as capitalism changing itself.

So you consider the two outcomes to be equally unlikely, and yet you would still like to see your hypothetical "massive social movements" press for the latter rather than the former. I.e., you are a reformist. Not only that, your reformism seems so natural and "inevitable" (you like to use that word a lot) to you that you are genuinely unable to even conceive of the idea that other people might not be reformists themselves. Specifically, you are unable to imagine that others might not be reformists while posting on a website literally named after libertarian communism.

That's just freakin' hilarious, and I don't expect to get tired of mocking it anytime soon.

Scallywag wrote:

I'd say given what's at stake with climate change we should do all that we can which can include direct action, but also getting governments to take serious meaningful action on climate change. We don't have a lot of time.

Absolutely; since we are pressed for time, nothing's off the table, really. Maybe run for office yourself to really shake things up? No, wait, start your own environment-friendly business! Get Greta Thunberg on the board of directors!

Scallywag wrote:

donald parkinson wrote:

To deal with climate change will require a far greater level of planning than we've seen in any capitalist state, and this planning, unlike that in the US during WII or the USSR will have to centralize on an international scale.

I guess this is very unlikely in the current political climate with Trump in the Whitehouse, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Brexit.

Of course. What makes centralized planning on a planetary scale unlikely is not the continued existence of an inherently wasteful and anarchic mode of production; it's the fact that we don't have the right person in the White House. Warren/Kamala/Bernie 2020!

I've been posting here every now and then for about 4 or 5 years you know, so I know this forum is a libertarian communist forum which doesn’t advocate voting or reformism. In those 4 or 5 years I've also never before had any problem with another user until I met you, so I don't know what your problem is.

Your making arguments in bad faith and again putting words in my mouth. I never said that Trump in the Whitehouse is the cause of the ecological crisis, or that I expect everyone to agree with me (I said that I thought it would be worth supporting and asked if it would be) or that capitalism changing into something else is the same as workers overthrowing it, or that reformism is inevitable, or that I would press for reform rather than revolution, or that I am a social democrat, again another of your accusations without even bothering to ask what I think. Even if I was which I am not, do you think you would change my mind by being a total condescending smart-arse.

Thanks for the reminder then that even anarchists can be assholes I guess, but seriously fuck living in an anarchist society if every anarchist turned out like you.

AnythingForProximity, while I agree with you in this discussion, I think your behaviour is bordering on the unhinged here. We're facing ecological collapse and environment-related humanitarian crises in our lifetimes (and, perhaps another few generations after that, species extinction); like Scallywag, I also vaguely entertain the notion that somehow capitalism will 'sort itself out' as communist revolution doesn't seem on the horizon to 'sort capitalism out' (in the Kray twins sense of the phrase rather than reform).

I recognise it's clutching at straws more than anything else (don't want to speak for Scallywag but I imagine it's something similar with them) but idea that other working-class people deserve derision for not being 'hard as steel, clear as glass' in the face of what feels like certain doom ('unless there's a revolution!' *groans*) just makes you look like someone completely lacking in human empathy. I imagine there's a sense of security, however, in feeling like you're holding the communist line so maybe everyone's just dealing with their anxiety differently here!

We're facing ecological collapse and environment-related humanitarian crises in our lifetimes (and, perhaps another few generations after that, species extinction); like Scallywag, I also vaguely entertain the notion that somehow capitalism will 'sort itself out' as communist revolution doesn't seem on the horizon to 'sort capitalism out' (in the Kray twins sense of the phrase rather than reform).

A revolution that would lead to anarchism in the 12 years we have to do something about climate change seems very unlikely to me. There are however a lot of people angry and concerned about climate change, and also a lot of people who know that the economy does not work for the good of people at large and the environment, but there aren't many anarchists. It would probably be easier in the short term to get those people to back and participate in the climate movement which would attempt to make government and corporations accountable to the crisis they are making and to take serious and meaningful action against it, than it would be to get them to overthrow capitalism and the state. I don't see why it needs to be one or the other though, can't we put eggs in both baskets and advocate revolution whilst still campaigning for reform, and if in the process people become radicalized then great.

We're facing ecological collapse and environment-related humanitarian crises in our lifetimes (and, perhaps another few generations after that, species extinction); like Scallywag, I also vaguely entertain the notion that somehow capitalism will 'sort itself out' as communist revolution doesn't seem on the horizon to 'sort capitalism out' (in the Kray twins sense of the phrase rather than reform).

I quite like the idea that mitigating catastrophic climate change might occur together with a radical global reduction of the work week, redistributing of socially useful activities and the suppression of a great variety of pointless/noxious/destructive activities. Though this might take the form of counterplanning from below on a massive scale, I don't at all imagine this will be a spontaneous mass movement that just pops up one day.

Even if this seems a questionable bet, we can now be fairly sure that any anticapitalist social movement will take place in the context of acute ecological crisis (one where many human and non-human habitats will be threatened), so thinking about how those two are connected is quite important. It's not that working class revolution is the only solution in that context (there are more horrible 'solutions') but it's the more desirable one, and it's a matter of realism to think through the consequences of what context it will occur in, if it does. Some might think that this is just trying to hitch the car of communism to the train of climate change, but it just demonstrates that the labour-based critique of capitalism isn't (and can't be) separate from the point of view of the reproduction of nature, of planetary life in general, that all our so-called 'labour' only precariously sits on top of.

I don't think, in addition, that the climate/ecological crisis should make us think "the state is the only possible pragmatic solution", I think that depends on illusions of what the state is, as some sort of detached rationality (right) hovering over society, and as something having more power to act than social forces themselves potentially have. The state is a result, not a cause. Any effective transformation of capitalism to sort out its ecological issues will be a class project, whether it's a molecular social revolution or a "state project", and it'll be the work of social class forces trying to either conserve class society in one form or another or overthrowing it.

This old blog post seems relevant to whether capitalism has the capacity to reform or not, although the question of whether it can reform enough to hit zero or negative greenhouse gas emissions is a bit easier to answer with a definitive 'no': https://libcom.org/blog/reform-possible-22122011

People tend to conflate reforms and concessions a bit too much in discussions like this, especially socdems pushing stuff like the Green New Deal tend to do so when people point out the plan itself is insufficient (whether that limited plan could even be implemented at all).

Something like the 1970s occupations against Narita, the '90s anti-roads protests in the UK, recent anti-pipeline protests in the US like NODAPL - these were concrete struggles that attempted to extract concessions (i.e. not building an airport, not building new roads, not building new pipelines) - even if they were limited to preserving the status quo.

This is very different from say a car scrappage scheme to encourage people to trade in petrol cars for electric ones (which would be counter-productive anyway because a lot of carbon is emitted during the process of car manufacture, not just from fuel) - which is purely a capitalist reform that will benefit particular sections of capital via subsidies with marginal or zero impact on climate change.

There are probably things in the middle (cycling infrastructure? free house insulation?) which straddle capitalist reforms vs. material concessions - not to say people should go out to campaign for those, and building bicycle routes to nowhere is worse than useless, but a communist revolution doesn't change the law of physics so dwellings will need better insulation either way.

Would be interested to hear takes from people here on their views on this, specifically the notion of a "build-and-fight" dual strategy to achieving both socialism and broader ecological transformations.

"It would seek to construct new worker-owned and self-managed enterprises rooted in sustainable methods of production on the build side and to enact various means of appropriation of the existing enterprises by their workers on the fight side, which would transition these industries into sustainable practices (or in some cases phase them out entirely)."

a "build-and-fight" dual strategy to achieving both socialism and broader ecological transformations.

I didn't really get any socialist message from reading this article. He does dismiss state capitalism but in his transitional system suggests a place for nationalization. Plus a whole list of palliatives that as he said will take millions of activists to achieve so why stop short with half-measures if such a mobilization succeeds.

I frowned when I read the reference to Earth First! I thought Bookchin had done a sufficient demolition job on deep greens.

This is radical reformism with an advocacy for frugality. I wonder how that will resonate with a world enduring austerity policies.

If this is the best eco-socialists have on offer then i'm going to have to prepare for death

I didn't really get any socialist message from reading this article. He does dismiss state capitalism but in his transitional system suggests a place for nationalization. Plus a whole list of palliatives that as he said will take millions of activists to achieve so why stop short with half-measures if such a mobilization succeeds.

Well, apart from the title, he outlines socialism as follows:

Quote:

Ultimately, I think we are going to have to develop a comprehensive and democratic planning system that equitably distributes the essential goods and services we all need to survive and thrive. And to be clear, I’m not arguing for a return to the centralized state-capitalist economies of the twentieth century, but the democratic socialization of the emergent information-based exchange economies, and that would utilize technological innovations to create a regenerative economy.

Agreed on the radical reformism. But hypothetically, if an anarcho/communist society arrives with full powers, so to speak, as a result of a clean break with the ideological/institutional past (rather than how a hybrid "solidarity economy" will look resulting from a reformist strategy), wouldn't it still be faced with the task of transforming all the material and social processes that capitalist society has left as its inheritance?

What are the concrete directions of these changes to envision and anticipate? There are many possible examples: dealing with the divide between cities and countryside and land use generally, or transforming/radically minimizing/phasing out the whole chain of petrochemical-to-plastic production and all the activities that "productively consume" its products. What are sensible ways of working with those issues, but not turning them into a technocratic matter unrelated to the form of society? I think it's a matter of both engaging with these questions concretely and pressing on the question of the limits of the capitalist social form and how a transition towards a sustainable social formation also requires new organizational forms capable of giving impetus to that transition.

Marx and Engels talking about mending the divide between city and countryside for a long time (and from the point of view of largely urban-concentrated social movements) seemed to be one of the "utopian" remnants in their thought, but actually today, and looking at it through the lens of social reproductive metabolism, it seems to be one of the most common sense things in their view of a society beyond capitalism. Likewise the critique of politics that is an underexamined part of Marx's critique of bourgeois society.

Our critique should be different from the already quite mainstream sense of "business and politics aren't doing what they need to do". Anticapitalists have a critique of both economics and politics, capitalism and the state, as two interlinked aspects of a social form which has its inherent limits. It seems that climate change is only the most coagulated result of these limits, and for that reason presents a radical problem to capitalism as a social structure (a concrete form of Zusammenbruch that most theorists of collapse hadn't exactly conceived like this).

I guess my point in the above is also that transition is different than reformism, it refers to the substantial transformation of social structures and their ecological aspects, the content of which is a concrete question for both reformists and nonreformists. Preserving a livable planet presents us with certain requirements and far-reaching consequences. The problem for reformist currents is that they link themselves to a set of institutions (capitalist property, the state, the individual company) that revolutionary currents think are part of the problem and cannot deliver the required changes.

Basically I think we need to engage with those concrete questions a lot more, without removing the centrality of social form from our critique and activity. That would be the consequence of not attacking the line of argument that says "this is a crisis, there's no time for sociopolitical innovation, only the state can save us now", which I don't think is really the case, considering how weaved into the mesh of capitalism climate change really is.

wouldn't it still be faced with the task of transforming all the material and social processes that capitalist society has left as its inheritance?

Spacious, you are right. People in a socialist society will have one helluva mess to fix.

But unlike what many environmentalists I have heard advocating degrowth say, the first stage towards a steady state society has to be an increase in productivity and use of resources, bringing the undeveloped and developing world (in fact much of the developed world, too) up to a standard of living that they seek and which is equitable to our own, although not a replication of all the consumerist addictions we are inflicted with. I'm talking decent diet, decent housing, decent healthcare, decent transport systems, decent education, all in all, a decent level of life. That will mean an initial rise in general production. This is possible in a benign sustainable way using renewables. But it will be very much horse for courses for the first generation of socialists to choose from. All we can do at this moment in time is generalize, unable to go into the fine details.

Am I optimistic that the course of action recommended by KA will succeed in preserving a liveable planet and would not be just reforms but revolutionary reforms. No.

Was it Tolstoy who said the ruling class will do everything and anything but get off the backs of the workers. Any reform that threatened their existence is simply not going to be enacted and if we are to engage in a possible civil war for reforms, as I said, we should make it worthwhile and go for socialism - and if we don't discuss now and debate now, socialism, it isn't going to feature in any future exchange.

Marx also provided a scenario other than the establishment of socialism in the Communist Manifesto, the battle will end “either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes”

If this is the best eco-socialists have on offer then i'm going to have to prepare for death.

I used to believe that the end of the world would be billions of years into the future with something like the sun becoming a red giant, and I wondered how humans would react being alive at the end of the Earth. Crazy to think that we could actually be there now.

I hope we take a "rage against the dying of the light" approach to it.

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